LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 




Talks abc 



a Fine Art 



Glover 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, 



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Shelf. 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



TALKS 
ABOUT A FINE ART 



by y 

ELIZABETH GLOVER 





NEW YORK 
T. Y. CROWELL & CO. 

13 Astor Placb 



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N 






Copyright, 1889, by 
Thomas Y. Crowell & Co, 



C. J. PETERS & SON, 

Typographers and Electrotypers, 
145 high Street, Boston, 



TALKS ABOUT A FINE ART. 



"Miss Fitts, I like to see you," said Kosalie, as 
the dressmaker with careful regard for the " way of 
the cloth " and the saving of material, laid down her 
patterns, and smoothed and snipped so swiftly and 
expertly. "I wish I could do something as nicely as 
you do that." 

" I presume you do many things as well as I do 
this," said Miss Fitts. 

"No," said Eosalie in regretful tone, "I haven't 
any art. There's a friend of mine," she presently 
continued, "whose father lost his money. She began 
at once to make her own dresses and her sisters', and 
you would be surprised to see how easily and neatly 
she does it. I just wonder at her. I have tried to 
do it more than once, and taken a world of pains, and 
not succeeded half as well, though I worked with all 
the patience I had." 

" I presume your gift is not in that line," said Miss 
Fitts. 

"No, and when I went to cooking-school last 
winter I had the same experience. Some of the 
girls could see almost before they were shown, but 
I had to watch and wait and follow every little direc- 
tion so carefully in order to get anything right." 

a 



4 TALKS ABOUT A FINE ART. 

" Not everybody can be practical," said Miss Fitts, 
sententiously. 

" Yes, it's so important ! Mamma says I have a 
good will, and that's something; but it would be 
pleasant to have a little faculty also ; especially 
where success is so necessary." 

"Success is just as necessary about other things 
than food and clothes," said Miss Fitts. " There's 
music ; we can't do without music. I heard you sing- 
ing like a lark this morning." 

A look of pain came upon Eosalie's face. " Miss 
Fitts," she said, "you don't know how my great dis- 
appointment came in there. I did want to sing ; and 
it seemed as if I could do that. I was taking lessons 
and getting on beautifully ; and one day I had a little 
cold, and in came the doctor and looked at my throat, 
and said I mustn't practise any more. I may sing by 
little snatches, you know, but to work at it, to be a 
real trained, practised singer, that is just forbidden 
me forever." 

"Forever is a long word," said Miss Fitts. "I 
never heard that the angels are troubled with weak 
throats." 

Eosalie smiled. " But one wants to be something 
in this world," she said. " There's Irene Hastings ; 
she has such a wonderful talent for painting. She 
won the first prize at the art school last year, and 
some of her little pictures have sold for really high 
prices. She has painted a beautiful frieze around her 
room. It is lovely ! " 

" Yes," said Miss Fitts, " I was there working when 
that was going on." 

"Didn't you like it?" said Rosalie, "Didn't you 
think it was clever ? " 



TALKS ABOUT A FINE ART. 5 

"Oh, yes, very clever; but you see, it seemed a 
little unfortunate for her to be shut in there, working 
away, on the top of a step-ladder, because her mother 
was sort of driven just then, between me and a sick 
boy she had. Once we called Irene down to see her 
mother's dress tried on, and we tried to get her to 
advise about the trimming ; but we couldn't get her 
head and her heart down out of the tangle of bul- 
rushes and purple iris round that ceiling. She was 
so pre-occupied we could not get anything out of her. 
But that was very natural, of course. Dress trim- 
mings can't be as interesting as art." 

"You ought not to have interrupted her," said 
Eosalie. 

" I suppose not. But then her mother was worried 
about her getting so tired, and glad of a pretext to 
interrupt her. Art does take one's strength, you 
know, dear, especially when it's up around the ceil- 
ing. Irene used to come down with the backache 
showing in her looks, and she couldn't eat any dinner, 
and of course such common things as Jack's new 
bicycle he was so full of, or the tariff that her father 
wanted to talk about, didn't interest her very much. 
How could they, after her being lost so long among 
the grasses and lilies and butterflies. But I was sorry, 
too, to have her get fretted by the talk of the rest. 
It put a kind of damper on the family." 

Eosalie looked sober. " I suppose there's a temp- 
tation with every talent," she said. " But some," she 
continued, "though they haven't any special talent 
can accomplish so much. There's Mrs. Morrison, you 
know. She's such a wonderful housekeeper, and yet 
she manages half the charities in town, and has such 
a large visiting acquaintance. That large house of 



6 TALKS ABOUT A FINE ART. 

hers is just immaculate from top to bottom. She has 
such beautiful supplies in her linen-closets and such 
stores of canned fruits and jellies in her storeroom. 
And I'm sure she has the longest calling list of any 
lady in town, and presides at the most committee- 
meetings. She seems to neglect nothing/' 

" No, she neglects nothing," said Miss Pitts slowly, 
her eyes fixed upon her work. 

" Well, then, why are you frowning, Miss Fitts ? 
You have something reserved against her." 

"No," said Miss Pitts, "I've got nothing against 
that good Mrs. Morrison. But I wish you'd forget 
her, Rosalie, and every other person, while I tell you 
an abstract truth." 

"Well, what is your abstract truth ? " 

" It's this : there are two things that can't be done 
by sheer force of business ability." 

" What things ? " 

"Mothering children, and being socially delightful." 

A mischievous smile shone in Rosalie's eyes. 

" What do you call i mothering,' Miss Fitts ? " she 
said. 

"Why, babying, and company-keeping, and story- 
telling, brooding them day by day to make them 
happy and good." 

"But some children get on very well without it." 

"They don't develop right. They get a hungry 
look, no matter what's in the pantry and the store- 
room." 

"And not everybody can be socially delightful," 
said Rosalie. " You don't call it a duty, do you, Miss 
Fitts ? " 

" I call it one's first duty," said Miss Fitts, " to be 
socially delightful at home" 



TALKS ABOUT A FINE ART. 7 

There was a little pause, during which the slight 
frown upon Miss Fitts's face deepened, and her 
cheeks flushed. "My dear," she said abruptly, "I 
think often of the ravages of intemperance." 

" What do you mean, Miss Fitts ? " 

" Why, generally when people talk about the rav- 
ages of intemperance they're thinking of drunken 
men who waste their substance, and make their 
homes wretched. But often when Fve seen a woman 
come to supper so tired, either with making preserves, 
or making calls, or leading missionary meetings, that 
she is ready to weep at a word, or to fly out at the 
children for screwing about in their chairs, so that a 
cloud comes over every face, and ill-temper creeps in 
along with the gloom, then I say to myself, ' Behold 
the ravages of intemperance ! ' " 

Eosalie could not help smiling at Miss Fitts's tragic 
expression. 

" Oh, you mind too much, Miss Fitts," she said. 

"Yes, perhaps I do, dear. Some things hurt me 
more than others. You see, I haven't got any home 
of my own, except my room, nor any folks to snub 
and fret at, except myself. That makes me think 
more about homes. I go from house to house and 
find myself getting jealous of the gifts you're enjoy- 
ing so ; jealous of the poetry and painting, and cooking 
and embroidery, yes, and of the charities, — jealous 
for the children's sakes, and the husband's. There's 
an art to be set above all the rest. That's the art for 
you, Eosalie." 

"What is it?" 

" The art of being lovely at home." 

"The art of being lovely at home," said Eosalie. 
"But of course everybody ought to have that, Miss 
Fitts." 



8 TALKS ABOUT A FINE ART. 

" But does everybody have it ? Own up, now, Rosa- 
lie. , Where do you not mind being shabby ? Where 
do you do your fretting ? Where are you perfectly 
indifferent whether you are entertaining or not ? " 

" At home," said Eosalie, flushing. 

" Ah ! " said Miss Fitts, " I tell you the art of being 
lovely at home is the finest, hardest, highest art I 
know of. But I don't care what other art a woman 
has if she hasn't that. I don't care what women's 
colleges teach, if they don't teach that. I suppose 
they will in the end, for all light goes together, and 
every true ray helps every other. But meantime 
I'm afraid some of the graduates are missing it 
sometimes. I knew one, very delicate and clever, 
always on the start for good works. One cold morn- 
ing she was half sick, and lay down on the lounge 
after breakfast, the most sensible thing she could do. 
But in the morning paper she read that a boy from 
an orphan home in which she was interested had been 
arrested for theft. Instantly she dressed and went 
down to the lockup to see the boy and hear his tale ; 
then hunted up his accusers ; then went and got a 
lawyer to defend him. She joined in a great deal of 
exciting talk and did not get home for hours." 

" It was lovely and generous of her," said Rosalie 
with enthusiasm. 

"Yes; but meantime she has two wilful boys at 
home, with minds as active as her own. The nurse 
was always contriving with them, or cowering before 
them. I coaxed one of them to sit by me that morn- 
ing and make a little mat for his mamma. He thought 
so much of it ! The very moment she came in he made 
a rush to give it to her. She was so nervous and 
tired she was almost beside herself. ' Go away/ she 



TALKS ABOUT A FINE ABT. 9 

said, ' and don't come near me till I call you. That 
made him angry — he has a nervous temperament 
the very reflection of her own. He began to stamp 
and scream. Then the poor deluded thing started in 
at once to discipline him for his naughtiness. my 
dear, it was dreadful ! and in the midst of it the 
father came home and had to hear and pacify it all. 
Next day I heard that child was wakeful all night ; 
and its mother had a chill, and couldn't get out of 
bed to attend it. So the father was up a good part 
of the night, quieting it. A man at his place of 
business cannot lie down daytimes to make up lost 
sleep as a woman often can at home. The same kind 
of trouble often happened at that house — and not 
long after she was left a widow. They called it 6 a 
mysterious providence ' at the funeral, but I could 
only keep saying to myself, ( Behold the ravages of 
intemperance.' " 

" Miss Fitts, that was terrible. And that woman 
wanted to be good ! " 

"It's not enough to want to be good, you must 
want to be good God's way. All you've got to be 
good with is bound up in one poor little body. You 
can't expect the fruits of the Spirit, love, joy, peace, 
to flourish out of a used-up, nervous system any more 
than grapes to grow on a dried-up vine." 

"Do you want to discourage us from attempting 
anything useful or intellectual ? " 

" I want you to look out for the temptations that 
go with gifts. I wouldn't say it before them," said 
Miss Fitts, lowering her voice, " but I think, yes, I do 
think, American husbands have a pretty hard time 
with their gifted wives. They want all the material 
things so complete — pretty, well-kept homes, pretty 



10 TALKS ABOUT A FINE ART. 

costumes for the children, carefully appointed tables, 
and yet they want some leisure for books and society, 
and have so many ambitions for outside work — all 
good and praiseworthy in its way ; and they have 
such sensitive, high-strung nervous organizations — 
take it altogether a man has got to be pretty smart, 
you see, to keep up with the demand such a one will 
make upon him. I wouldn't say it in his hearing, 
but I can but think it." 

"Well, what can you do about it, Miss Fitts ? " 

" Nothing, my dear, except that I'd like to keep 
saying to those wives the same old words over and 
over, ' Seek ye first, — seek ye first the kingdom of 
heaven.' " 

"I don't see what that has to do with it, Miss 
Fitts." 

" Why, my dear ! every woman who prays, i Thy 
kingdom come,' has got to try to make her home a 
corner of the kingdom of heaven, and the kingdom 
of heaven, you know, is not meat and drink, but right- 
eousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost. If one 
is going to diffuse those in the corner where she lives, 
she's got to cherish them in her own heart firsts of 
course." 

" Yes," said Eosalie. 

"But, my dear, I've seen very virtuous women 
sacrifice them all for ideal meat and drink, as well as 
for German and art, and a course of concerts, and 
even the orphan asylum and the Sunday-school class," 

Eosalie smiled. " I like your fine art," she pres- 
ently said, u but I don't want you to tell me any more 
dreadful stories, Miss Fitts. Tell me next about 
people who really have been lovely at home.'' 



TALKS ABOUT A FINE ART. 11 



II. 



"You asked me to tell about people who were 
really lovely at home/' said Miss Fitts. " But the 
first one I think of, Bosalie, was a very humble kind 
of lovely person." 

"Well, tell me about her." 

" If she had not been lovely at home she could not 
have been so at all, for she never was anywhere else. 
She was an aunt of mine who did the cooking and 
kitchen-work in our home. There were seven of us 
children, beside farm-hands. So she was always work- 
ing, working — not in any rush or hurry, but steadily 
all day. But she had such sweet, quiet, wholesome 
ways of working that she made every kind of labor 
that is done about a kitchen seem beautiful to us. 
Wasn't that a good mission ? She never shut us out 
of the kitchen, or said we were l right under foot.' 
She gave us bits of pastry to roll out and let us help 
her, till we knew all the right ways of doing things 
before we were fairly old enough to do them. She 
loved fresh air, and I learned to love it just from the 
delightful way she had of opening the windows. 
She loved fresh water, and would freely draw it from 
the deep well, rather than let us drink what had been 
standing. She loved cleanliness, and I know I learned 
to love it when I was only a baby from her pleasant 
ways of coaxing me to have my hands washed. She 
seldom wore anything but calico, but I've seen women 



12 TALKS ABOUT A FINE ART. 

in silk who could not look as ladylike. She had 
beautiful, smooth hair, and a gentle face. I never 
heard her speak a sharp word. Every morsel of food 
she cooked was nice. She hated waste and she hated 
stinginess." 

" She was practical, Miss Fitts," Eosalie inter- 
rupted. " Pm afraid I can never be like her." 

" But she was not lovely because she was practical. 
Her work was practical, but her nature was ideal. 
That was the reason she was lovely enough to make 
her work lovely. The ideal got mixed up in every 
pudding and every loaf of bread she made. It's a 
great mistake to think one can't be ideal except in 
such things as poetry and painting and music, or some 
kind of fine social entertaining. It's a mistake that's 
making people hate manual labor, and bringing many 
to ruin. No, it was the fine enthusiasm, and the love 
that flowed into everything she did that made her 
lovely. None of us could forget the way she had of 
teaching us little maxims that stood to her for high 
things : ' Try, try again,' and i Duty before pleasure ; ' 
and then the hymns she said and sang to us ! When 
did she find time to learn them ? She was the living 
exposition of some of them to us : 

" ' Come, Kingdom of our God, 
Sweet reign of light and love.' 

" I shall never hear that without thinking of her. 
It was the ( sweet reign of light and love ' that made 
her lovely; and all the time she thought herself 
nothing in the world." 

" Tell me some more," said Eosalie. 

"Well, I look out of my window Sunday after- 
noons, and see my neighbor, Mrs. Nicholson, reading 



TALKS ABOUT A FINE ART 13 

Sunday-school books to her children. You mightn't 
think her lovely, but I do. Very likely one child is 
on each rocker of her chair behind, one on each arm 
of it, one on her lap. It's a strong old chair, but of 
course it will get rickety. She says she wants them 
to feel free to get round her even if it does. She's 
such a cheerful woman. Of course she's very busy 
with such a family ; but she says she will have 
Saturday afternoons to go out with her children. 
They make some little excursions by the street cars, 
or to see the picture-shops. She says she must have 
her share of the sunshine, and she wants to take it 
with them. She isn't nagging the children all the 
way about their behavior, or the way they've got 
their hats and sashes tied. They're such happy chil- 
dren, they're sure to behave well. Happiness makes 
folks pleasant mannered. I know the furniture is 
not very good in that house. (Wait till I get a 
chance, Kosalie, to tell you some time what I think 
about houses and furniture.) And the children are 
not stylish, though they are clean. They take the 
dresses and sacks from the older to the younger, 
without much toil of making over. But those boys 
and girls are growing up to be real capable, happy 
men and women. You should see how good they are 
to their father and mother!" 

" Miss Fitts," said Eosalie, half impatiently, " why 
do you think so much about the children ? " 

" If you want good water haven't you got to take 
care of the springs ? " said Miss Fitts quite sharply. 
" Seems to me nowadays, folks are thinking too much 
of the river, and the mill power, and the fishing, and 
the boats, and even the scenery, and too little of how 
the springs may get choked up, or dried, or trampled ! " 



14 TALKS ABOUT A FINE ART. 

"But can't a person be lovely at home, and have 
some work outside, as well ? " 

" Some can," said Miss Fitts cautiously, " but folks 
ought to be more careful than they are. And mothers 
with growing children — seems to me they need all 
the strength, and all the leisure, and all the mind 
they've got, to be sunny and shadowy enough for the 
plants in their own garden. 'Tisn't any by-the-way 
sort of business — bringing up children." 

"But tell me about somebody who is lovely at 
home, and has outside work too." 

"Well, there's Miss Drayton." 

"Oh, yes," said Eosalie, "she teaches that great 
infant class in our mission-school, and runs half the 
parish work beside." 

"You see, she has only her mother and grand- 
mother at home, and both in good health. But she's 
lovely with them; takes off her walking-dress and 
makes herself pretty, if she's ever so tired, and sits 
down by her deaf grandmother, and tells her about 
everything she's done and heard, and everybody she's 
seen, right through the day. It's better than a play 
to the old lady. Miss Drayton brings out the funny 
side of everything to please her, and they laugh 
together like two children. That's something you 
ought to learn to do, Rosalie, if you want to be lovely 
at home, — to see and use the funny things." 

"I never can do that," Eosalie said. 

" More people can than you would think. There's 
something funny in every little stupid bit of life, if 
you turn it the right way, like sparkles in a stone. 
We ought to use it more." 

" How ? " 

"Why, to make people forget their aches and their 



TALES ABOUT A FINE ART. 15 

worries and their ugly moods. Get people laughing 
wholesomely, and you've given the sunshine a chance. 
A kind of peace follows when you may say anything 
good, and it will be well received." 

" Now you've invented a new duty. But not every- 
body can fulfil it." 

"If people would only keep up in the clear sun- 
shine and try it ! " said Miss Fitts. " When you're 
just clean possessed to be lovely and helpful, Bosalie, 
you'll find there's help about this. I keep remember- 
ing how the Lord Jesus said He had come that we 
might have 'life,' and have it 'more abundantly.' I 
believe that means so abundantly that folks can even 
be funny out of the abundance of it. I don't think 
it's irreverent to believe that the Lord puts it into 
people's hearts to be full of fun sometimes when you 
see what good ends it will serve." 

" Miss Fitts ! " 

" I don't. Just see how a little humor will delight 
the children and do them good. You can do anything 
with them after it, and how it pleases the old and 
makes the sick forget their pains ! When you've got 
people in good humor there's a chance for all that's 
good to reach them." 

" I never thought of fun in that way," said Rosalie. 

" Why, it just means a light, happy spirit. It 
ought to belong to every Christian. Folks used to 
think it was inconsistent for a professor of religion to 
have it. Seems to me the inconsistency is for him 
not to have it. And that reminds me of another 
lovely woman — lovely at home and everywhere." 

" Who was she ? " 

" A minister's wife ; the blessedest woman that ever 
stepped. It seemed as if she could not open her 



16 TALKS ABOUT A FINE ABT. 

mouth but the fun must flow out; and she didn't 
need to speak it, for it was always shining in her 
eyes. But half the secret of it was that she had the 
kindest, most sensitive heart. She couldn't bear that 
anybody should have pain ; she wanted to ease it all, 
and bring pleasure instead. Her husband was a 
grave, good man, not — well — not winning as she 
was. He kept his place in his parish for forty years, 
and I believe it was her sweet temper and mother 
wit that time and again diverted discontent and 
smoothed over difficulties, and kept him freshened 
up for his work, so that he was kept in his place and 
blessed in it. Didn't he love her ! and his people 
loved her, too. But then they lived in the country." 

" What difference does that make ? " 

" Oh, folks may have time to laugh in the country, 
they don't get so engaged. I see how it is here, peo- 
ple have no time to be entertaining at home. Then 
such a procession of engagements ; so many clubs and 
societies and associations to be looked after, it makes 
people tired and silent and grave when they get to 
their homes. Something is lost in the way of smiles 
and good times and affectionate, happy ways, that the 
Lord loves to see in homes, seems to me. I was told 
once, there's no such word as home in the French lan- 
guage. Sometimes I think we're going to lose the 
thing itself here in America." 

"Why, MissFitts?" 

" Oh, I see little signs that trouble me. I read a 
story in my Century that told about some nice, aristo- 
cratic Boston folks. They were good, kind people, 
but when the father couldn't use his eyes, the story 
shows how he never thinks of asking his daughters to 
read to him, they have so many social and charitable 



TALKS ABOUT A FINE ART. 17 

engagements. The way is for him to hire a reader. 
That made me feel bad. What could make up for all 
that might be between a father and daughter growing 
intimate over books ? To pay the price of such a 
great, beautiful pleasure for any good one might do 
to outsiders, seems to me too much. I can't think 
it's right such ways should be customary. We might 
as well live in a community like the Shakers. If 
mutual help in homes is to be given up, seems to me 
the very seed of true heart life will perish out of the 
land. If nurses and governesses step in between 
mothers and children, what is going to make it up in 
the way of heart development to either side ? " 

There was such a frown of disturbance upon Miss 
Fitts's face that Eosalie was alarmed. 

"Miss Fitts," she said, "never mind that. What 
was it you were going to tell me about houses and 
furniture in connection with being lovely at home ? " 



18 TALKS ABOUT A FINE ART. 



III. 



" I wanted to say this about houses and furniture 
in connection with being lovely at home," said Miss 
Pitts, "that the way women are going to work to 
make home lovely in these days often seems just 
opposed to their being lovely in it. They get together 
a lot of pretty china things, and little plush tables, 
and soft, yellow curtains, and fancy work, and pretty 
pictures, and footstools, and cabinets with mirrors in ; 
and then they are in earnest to arrange them just the 
prettiest way they can. And I do say it's a wonder 
to see how they can make their houses look like pic- 
tures as they do. Sometimes the rooms get sort of 
smothered up and cluttered with curtains and furni- 
ture, so that you can't seem to breathe freely. That's 
the only thing that isn't pretty about the new ways 
of fixing homes. But what does it matter about the 
feathers in the nest, if the mother bird has got so 
lean and sharp and peevish getting them together 
and laying them straight that she can hardly help 
pecking everybody that comes near her, and not a 
chick can stir for fear of disturbing something and 
getting a reprimand ? " 

" But, Miss Fitts," said Eosalie, " I think it makes 
people pleasanter to see things look pretty and bright 
about them." 

" So it does, if there isn't too great a burden of 
care and expense with it all. But when a young wife 



TALKS ABOUT A FINE ART. 19 

has a perpetual discontent in her mind for want of a 
set of curtains here, or a picture there, and either 
scrimps her husband's dinner to get it, or induces 
him to stretch his means beyond what is prudent, 
something uglier than eyes ever beheld has got into 
that home. Or, say, having got her house full of 
pretty things, she sees she must either have more 
help than she can afford, to keep them in order, or 
must make herself a bond slave to dusting and care. 
Oh ! in a pretty house Fve seen a pretty face all 
seamed and distorted with cross lines just about 
pretty things. To be made unhappy by your privi- 
leges — isn't that a misfortune ? To be made un- 
lovely just for the sake of having lovely things about 
you ! I tell you, Rosalie, in spite of all that's said in 
praise of pretty surroundings, nowadays, I'm more 
than ever a heretic about them. I come near hating 
them sometimes, because I see them interfere with 
inner, that is, real loveliness. Now you're staring at 
me, and more than half angry with me. But let me 
try to explain : 

" It's dreadful to live in things. The more things 
you have, the more you've got to think about them, 
the more you must live in them. The prettier they 
are, the more you like to live in them. Then don't 
you see how a woman gets belittled ? First she wants 
to get things ; then to fix them ; then to show them. 
She grows more and more like a child with a baby- 
house. You go to see her and she begins to show 
you this and that, and you are interested and admire 
everything. But, after all, you didn't go to her house 
as you would to a museum or an art-shop. You want 
to see her. You want to sit down and have a little 
talk with her. You ask about the children. I knew 



20 TALKS ABOUT A FINE ART. 

the time when it was like the letting out of water to 
ask a mother that. To tell about their growth, their 
studies, their talk and their tempers, would set a 
mother glowing and smiling and talking by the hour. 
It makes me sadder than I can tell to see how the 
times have changed about that. I've seen well-mean- 
ing mothers, lately, plenty of them, who, if you asked 
about the children, had very little answer to make, 
and that was mostly not about the children but about 
their nurse, to tell how good or how bad she was, how 
lifeless or how entertaining ; or else the talk would 
run off on to the best place in New York to buy 
children's clothes. A woman who has been living in 
things is too blinded to know much that is real about 
her children. 

"It is the same with her about matters relating to 
our country, or the world, questions of politics, or 
education, or missionary effort. She has been shut- 
ting herself out from them. Well, I know there's 
excuse to be made. The business of running a house- 
hold is absorbing, even for the wisest. But that's 
just why it should be made simple, so that one may 
not get shut up in it as in a prison, where the air is 
close, and where you can't find a hole as big as a tea- 
cup looking out toward eternity. What difference 
does it make if a woman's prison is made of stone, 
or of all manner of pretty toys, so long as it just 
keeps her in ? " 

" But I think it would make quite a difference, Miss 
Fitts," said Kosalie, smiling. 

" Then it's a difference that's against her. She 
loves the prison and builds the walls higher all the 
time. That's another thing ; there's no end to the 
craze for pretty things. The reason is, the pleasure 



TALKS ABOUT A FINE ART 21 

they give is short-lived, and if you're shut up to that 
kind of pleasure you're in perpetual wanting. When 
I see such a woman buying and buying, I remember 
all the little orphans and Indians and immigrant chil- 
dren growing up all over our country, and needing 
kindergartens and industrial schools and Sunday- 
schools, and it makes me half wild to see her wasting 
herself and her money so." 

" Ah, Miss Fitts," said Eosalie, " that's the secret 
of your spite against the pretty things." 

"No, Rosalie, not wholly, it's only one of the 
reasons why I keep seeing, even in lovely pictures, 
and innocent wall-papers and curtain-stuffs, a kind of 
pretty devil's bait to trap the unwary." 

"I love them all, Miss Fitts, and I don't like to 
have you call them such names. Don't you remember 
how John Wesley said he wasn't going to let the 
devil have all the pretty tunes ? and why should he 
have the pretty things either ? " 

"See to it he doesn't, my dear. There's where 
your safety lies. Make them God's tools if you don't 
want them to corrupt you ; things to serve the king- 
dom of heaven with. Then pretty soon you'll find 
out their true place, and that it's a small one in com- 
parison to that of some other things. To make your- 
self and your home lovely, you'll want, oh, so much 
finer and more costly things ; and yet, things to be 
bought without money and without price ; things safe 
to covet; to hunger and thirst for; a happy, free 
spirit; a mind alive and seeing open windows to 
show your country's welfare, and nature, and the 
world and heaven. You'll want room for things not 
just your own, but things mutual between you and 
all men, common joys and common pains, and common 



22 TALKS ABOUT A FINE ART. 

praises and hopes. See here, my dear," she cried, 
suddenly interrupting herself, " do you want to know 
what test I find myself applying to some of these 
little pictures of homes, full of lovely things and all 
complete and neat as a jewel-box; ruffled pillows, 
shams on the beds, tidies on the chairs, pictures, por- 
tieres, rugs, little fireplaces with bright andirons and 
embroidered lambrequins, jars of flowers in the win- 
dows ? Well, I look about and ask, ' Is any great 
man likely to grow up in this home ? ' 

"You needn't laugh, Kosalie. I know it isn't 
impossible, but isn't the idea a little incongruous ? 
Where there has to be so much thought spent on 
pretty things ; where little children are being taught 
to set great value on them, and to make them practi- 
cally an end instead of a means in living, does it 
seem likely that great souls, great hearts and minds 
are likely to grow ? Ah, I think if you can satisfy a 
soul with its little material surroundings you've done 
it an awful injury ! You've shut the door upon im- 
agination, and stunted bravery and faith. You've 
clipped the wings of effort and deadened the mind 
against all the larger interests of mankind. No, 
great men do not come that way. I think of Lincoln 
ciphering on the wooden shovel by the firelight in his 
log cabin ; I think of the Emersons washing dishes 
for their mother in their plain home ; I think of the 
Beechers racketing round that old parsonage in Litch- 
field ; and of Whittier looking out the farmhouse 
window to see palaces in the snow. And I think 
about those cottages Carlyle and Burns grew up in ; 
I think of Luther singing for his bread ; and I think 
about John Euskin without a toy of his own in that 
simple, dignified home his mother made for him. He 



TALKS ABOUT A FINE ART. 23 

says lie studied art from the patterns of the counter- 
panes and the carpets. He'd learn better art off from 
any counterpane, I take it, than from most of the 
placques our women hang up. Well, and I think of 
Macaulay, one of ten — every mother can tell what 
that means in a home. No, not every mother in these 
days can tell what joys and riches, as well as what 
labor and simple living, the raising of ten children 
means in an ordinary home. Did you ever notice 
how many great men have come out of large families ? 
Just notice after this and see. ' Where brothers 
dwell, and sisters meet ' a child gets a start no other 
planting-place will give him, and it often lasts to 
keep him ahead of his fellows all his life long. But 
I did not mean to get upon that. I started to say 
this, Eosalie : There's got to be a new thought about 
homes. It's this : What sort of a home is best for 
a great soul to be developed in ? " 



24 TALKS ABOUT A FINE ART. 



IV. 



"Now, Miss Fitts, do not talk any more about 
great questions/' said Kosalie, "but be downright 
practical and tell me how I can be lovely at home." 

" You know more about it this minute," said Miss 
Fitts, giving her a shrewd, affectionate glance, " than 
a dull old woman like " — 

" But I want to know what you know, or what you 
think." 

" Well, if I were young, and could be pretty, as all 
young girls can, more or less, I'd be sure to be pretty 
at home." 

" Now you're counselling vanity." 

"Not a bit of it. Vanity is all in the motive. 
Nothing of us belongs so wholly to other people as 
our looks, and those who have to see us most, if they 
don't deserve the best we can give them in that line, 
who does ? " 

Eosalie laughed. "I never thought of that," she 
said. 

"Few girls do," said Miss Fitts, "their best efforts 
to look well are always when they go out. It's very 
foolish." 

"Why, Miss Fitts?" 

" Because nobody cares about your looks as your 
home people do. When you wear this pretty pink 
evening dress, a number of people will give you a 
careless glance, and say you are looking well; the 



TALKS ABOUT A FINE ART. 25 

hostess will be pleased to think you are an ornament 
to her party ; some of your own friends will have a 
little honest pleasure in your appearance ; but the 
real sweet, steady satisfaction it gives will be in the 
hearts of your father and mother. 

" Or," continued Miss Fitts, " if anybody should 
admire the rose so much that he wishes to transplant 
it, be sure he would not wish to do so if he thought 
it was going to drop its dews, and turn yellow and 
brown in the leaf when he had got it in his own 
garden. Do you know, I think the prettier a woman 
is personally, the more you hate her deformities when 
she consents to go about in crimping-pins and a slat- 
ternly Mother Hubbard. I despise a woman who will 
go about so among her children." 

" Hush, Miss Fitts ; you are not going back to the 
children just now, you know." 

" But I must stand up for them. They like pretty 
looks, and are insulted by a slovenly appearance as 
much as anybody, though they don't know how to 
express their feeling." 

" But people are used to us at home. They've got 
to take us as we are anyway ; and one must be free 
and easy somewhere." 

"Free and easy, yes. You ought never to wear a 
dress you're not free in. I'm losing custom right 
along these tight-fitting days by sticking to that prin- 
ciple. But nobody ought to be free and easy in being 
untidy." 

"Oh, of course a lady expects to look tolerably 
neat always. But one gets hurried in the morning, 
or comes in to dinner late and tired, and can't take 
pains to look her best. Strangers only judge us by 
our looks, so when we go in company we must try to 
look well." 



26 TALKS ABOUT A FINE ART. 

" See here/' said Miss Fitts, " if you are in the 
habit of looking pretty at home, then won't you be 
most likely to be always pretty ? It's like manners 
a little. You won't be caught off guard in what you 
practise every day. One of these days/' she con- 
tinued meditatively, "there's going to be a new civil- 
ization. It will begin from within, outward. Folks 
will try to look like angels just for the Lord's sake, 
and then for the sake of their little ones, and their 
nearest and dearest. It will be the same about their 
housekeeping. There will be no fixing up for com- 
pany then. There won't be any need. Things will 
always be at their best ; but dress and housekeeping 
and hospitality will be far, far simpler than they are, 
— very clean and simple, but very beautiful and 
perfect." 

"0 Miss Fitts," cried Eosalie, "come back from 
dreaming about the millennium." 

" There's that expression ' free and easy ' you used 
just now, Eosalie," continued Miss Fitts. "It re- 
minded me of a sermon I read once of Phillips 
Brooks about the ' law of liberty.' He said in it, if 
I got his meaning right, that the judgment-seat might 
be nothing but the lifting off of every restraint, so 
that people just turned and went as they pleased. 
That showed what they were, that read them out 
plain, — their own choice. See now how the law of 
liberty is a perfect judgment ; it probes right down 
into the depths of every heart. Well, now, home is 
the free and easy place, as you say, and so far home's 
the judgment-seat. Just what's free and easy for 
you, that's what you are. If you like to be slack or 
slangy, or fretful or fidgety, or lazy or selfish, you 
can be so at home. There's little restraint. The 



TALKS ABOUT A FINE ART 27 

perfect law of liberty is upon you at home, judging 
you all the time." 

" Oh, have mercy, Miss Fitts ! " cried Eosalie, cov- 
ering her face with her hands. " Have mercy ! you 
do make things so deep and awful." 

" I don't make them. They are as they are. Now 
don't you forget that law of liberty at home. I know 
your choice is for everything good. You've got to 
live up to your choices at home if you are going to be 
real true to them." 

" But come back to details, Miss Fitts. I'm fright- 
ened at your great laws." 

"Well, of course you want to practise your best 
manners at home." 

" To the children, of course," said Eosalie. 

" Yes ; nobody will appreciate them more, or give 
them back quicker in sweeter ways. I've seen people 
try to teach children manners in about as sensible a 
way as if you tried to make a green apple rosy by 
painting it over. They never think of shining on 
them, not to speak of giving them time and sap. As 
likely as not they will insinuate a worm of hypocrisy 
into the child's heart, and get their pretty color that 
way. They won't seem to appreciate the mischief 
at all. 

" I believe," continued she, " more family quarrels 
have been made by folks not using gracious manners 
toward their relatives than in any other way. And 
I have known girls so sweet and smiling in society 
you would not believe they could be ugly, who thought 
nothing of speaking rudely to their fathers and 
mothers at home. You are not one of those, Eosalie, 
but sometimes you like to sit mum over your embroi- 
dery, or to hug your book when your brother is want- 



28 TALKS ABOUT A FINE ART. 

ing to have you talk with him ; and you don't always 
run to wait on your mother as you should." 

" Oh, Miss Fitts, if only you had not crushed me 
with that dreadful law of liberty ! " 

"And/' continued Miss Fitts, "I've seen ladies 
who wouldn't for anything talk about their servants 
in company, who begin to fret to their husbands about 
Bridget or Ann, the moment those poor men get into 
the house. Women get so sunk in their work. It's 
a dreadful state, — as far as possible from being 
lovely. I wish often they could have a brisk walk 
in the open air before they come to their meals, as 
their husbands do. They might come to table merrier 
and sweeter. But of course that can't always be. 
They ought to make it a principle to behave as 
beautifully to their own folks as they would to 
company." 



TALKS ABOUT A FINE ART. 29 



V. 



" Well, now that you have told me to look pretty 
and to be mannerly at home, what else, Miss Fitts ? 
Those are only outside things, you know." 

"I don't know," said Miss Fitts. "Most outside 
things begin from within. But there's something 
harder than these. I wonder if I can explain it. 
Did you ever see a girl get a poetry book, and sit 
delighted over it because the words were so beautiful 
and the thoughts so high, but lay it down when any 
of the family came into the sitting-room, and begin 
to talk about what was in the newspaper, or some bit 
of gossip, or about things to eat or wear, and never 
say a word about the pleasure she'd had in that lovely 
poetry ? " 

" Yes," said Eosalie, blushing. 

" Did you ever go to see a friend who was going to 
be married, and have your heart moved by seeing her 
happy, noble feeling about it, and then come home 
and tell your mother little commonplace things about 
the bride's trousseau and wedding presents, and never 
say a word about the pleasure you had in her happi- 
ness ? " 

"Yes." 

" And did you ever go to a funeral, and get all sorts 
of holy, solemn thoughts, and then come home and 
tell about the folks who were there, and the inscrip- 
tion on the coffin-plate, and the way the flowers were 



30 TALKS ABOUT A FINE ART. 

fixed, and never say one word about the true helpful 
feelings that came to you ? " 

"Yes, often." 

" How was it when you became a Christian ? " 

" I thought I never could tell my mother." 

" And now, when you hear anything at church you 
wish your brothers could feel and love as you do, do 
you just eagerly go and try to show it to them as you 
see it ? » 

" Miss Fitts ! I know I'm very wicked. My 
heart just aches about such things sometimes. But 
I don't know how to begin to talk about such things 
at home." 

"It's all wrong," said Miss Fitts sorrowfully. "I 
see it everywhere, and I don't know what to make 
of it. Why, up in heaven, Eosalie, our Lord is going 
to say, ( Enter ye into my joy.' If we do truly want 
to make our homes a little heaven here below, we've 
got to share our joy too. All the great, holy, best 
thoughts and feelings you have, they are your joy; 
they make life worth having, don't they ? " 

"Yes." 

"And if they do it for you, they can for others. 
Just think of one getting in the way at home, of 
all places, of talking out our worst, or at least our 
cheapest, worldly, commonplace side, just the part 
of us that has to do with things to eat or to wear, 
and never having a word to say of our truest, high- 
est, spiritual life. What does it say in the Scrip- 
ture about ' not hiding thyself from thine own flesh ' ? 
It is talking about charity, I believe, but is there any 
better than to share the very fine gold of life ? " 

" How can I do it, Miss Fitts ? " 

" By just setting out to do it on principle. Ask 



TALKS ABOUT A FINE ART. 31 

the Lord to help you, and throw away your fears and 
your pride. Be just frank and simple and generous 
about it. You've got plenty of tact and contrivance 
about you, Eosalie 5 just use it in this service, and 
see if you don't get repaid." 

" But one is so afraid of seeming a hypocrite ! " 

" When you know you're in dead earnest ? You 
can trust wisdom to justify herself better than that." 

"But people are often so dreadfully silent when 
you say something unusual." 

"They may receive it all the same. And if you 
keep on in the same strain just as if it was usual, 
they may begin to feel it so, and you may get free 
answers after a while. Then won't you be happy ! " 

Eosalie took a little book from her shelves and 
began to turn the leaves. " You will like this/' she 
said. " Now listen : 

" * Say, what delights can equal those 
That stir the spirit's inner deeps, 
When one who loves, but knows not, reaps 
A truth from one who loves and knows ? ' " 

" That's it ! " cried Miss Eitts, delighted. " There's 
a love of truths in every heart. Why don't we trust 
it more ? Why don't we talk so as to call it out ? 
We expect the very atmosphere's going to do it in 
heaven — why don't we try to make such an atmos- 
phere in homes ? It makes folks so happy to be 
feeling and thinking their best. If you can help 
them to do it, Eosalie, you'll be the highest kind of 
an artist." 

"Some day," she continued, "you'll begin to make 
a home of your own. I often think if I was going to 
do that I'd never let this speechless way get into it 



32 TALKS ABOUT A FINE ART. 

— never from the beginning. Who should share the 
loveliest, deepest things in each other's hearts if hus- 
bands and wives should not ? — and what else should 
they most freely give to their children ? There's a 
hard-working mother I know who hasn't much time 
to talk to her children, but she's got one of these 
' Golden-Text ' calendars, with good, wise sayings on 
it, beside the verses, and every morning she calls 
them round it to read the verses and texts, and to 
talk about them. They all like it. She won't let her 
lips get sealed to them, or theirs toward her, and 
when the Holy Spirit comes into those children's 
hearts he'll find open doors of utterance their mother 
has kept for them. Isn't that a great thing to do ? " 

"But what if people don't want you to speak your 
best ? " 

" Do your duty bravely all the same. You may get 
thanked for it sooner than you think. If bread is 
bread, folks must come to hunger for it some time. 
Then they'll maybe look for the crumbs you let fall." 

Eosalie was silent for a while. Presently she said : 

" Before one could even begin such work one must 
be very lovely at home, and very loving too." 

"Very loving," repeated Miss Fitts. "I guess 
that's the secret, Bosalie, of the whole art. At any 
rate it has no foundation without that." 



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